For £350,000, shabby chalet (with an outside loo)
They’ve never been more expensive — but still bring in sunny returns, says Fred Redwood
THIS tiny run-down Cornish beachside chalet is being sold for up to £ 50,000 – and doesn’t even have an indoor loo.
But the modest two-bedroom detached property is just a short stroll from pretty Gwithian Sands beach, in Hayle.
It is on the market with a guide price of £ 25,000 to £ 50,000.
With just 200sq ft of floor space, the compact home, said to have ‘sea-glimpse views’, has separate kitchen and lounge areas, and two bedrooms in the main building. And if you do get caught short, don’t fret, there is an external shower room complete with a toilet on the land.
The home is also freehold and has no ‘occupancy restrictions’ – meaning you can live there all year round. It’s being auctioned on May 26 by Auction House Devon and Cornwall.
YOU may have noticed that beach huts have been causing a furore up and down the country, with beachgoers willing to do almost anything to secure leases and some sellers demanding up to £600,000 for tiny structures.
Just this week, owners of sought-after beach huts on Essex seafronts were warned by the council to stop making extravagant additions to their huts, such as balconies and patios, in a bid to rent them out for expensive events and parties.
What remains clear is that beach huts are hot property in the UK. Research by Hoo, the hotel room offer platform, shows that the average price of a beach hut soared by 41 per cent last year, fuelled by the popularity of staycations during the lockdowns. This year, a hut will cost £27,500 on average.
Now consider the returns. The average cost of renting a beach hut is £1,190 per month, about £40 a day. To put this in perspective, the daily rate of a hotel is only £67, rising to £112 in London.
Jodie Granger-Brown runs a lucrative business — The Happy Huts — managing the lettings for 15 other beach hut owners and owning two huts herself in Wells-next-the-Sea, North Norfolk.
For £60 a day, Jodie ensures her huts have everything a family needs for a traditional British day at the beach, including outdoor chairs, windbreaks, beach toys and a gas stove to make a cup of tea.
‘I bought my first hut 15 years ago for £50,000 and today it would sell for £90,000,’ says Jodie. ‘Demand boomed last year and I don’t see it fading. My huts are nearly fully booked for the season. A beach hut is the perfect way to counteract the British weather.’
Sade Chapman, 32, rents one of Jodie’s huts every three months or so as a treat for her two children, Emily, three and Jack, six. ‘It’s great to have a base where we can prepare drinks and a simple meal,’ says Sadie. ‘And it saves the bother of carrying all our gear down to the beach.’
The price of beach huts varies alarmingly around our coastline, but undoubtedly our St Tropez is Mudeford in Dorset. Mudeford Spit, to use its full name, is a long bank of sand separating the sea from the inner waters of Christchurch harbour.
TO GET the full Robinson Crusoe experience, the residents are allowed, for eight months of the year, to sleep in the huts overnight to the sound of the waves — hence them changing hands for eye-watering sums. This spring the going rate was about £350,000 and one hut sold for £570,000. However, they rent for £126 a night.
Huts on The Spit sell as soon as they come on the market but a six-minute drive away at Avon Beach prices are appreciably lower. ‘Position is everything,’ says Gareth Bowden of estate agents, Winkworth (winkworth.co.uk). ‘At Avon Beach, we are selling a front row hut with views towards the Isle of Wight, for £100,000. Second row huts sell for £70,000 and one in the back row costs about £68,000.’
The beach huts at Avon Beach rent for about £30 a day.
The five beach huts at Branscombe, Devon are just as well positioned as those on Mudeford Spit. Set beneath the cliffs, right on the beach itself, these cedarwood huts have pine interiors with sitting rooms opening onto balconies that look out to sea.
Sadly, there are also drawbacks to living so close to nature: in the storms of 2014 the huts suffered considerable damage. Yet it didn’t deter someone last month meeting the asking price of £275,000 for one of them.
Beach huts are also downright trendy nowadays. They appear regularly on social media and ‘seaside chic’ is featured in glossy lifestyle magazines such as Coast.
Vicky Gunn at Millie’s Beach Huts in Walton-on-the-Naze even offers a styling consultancy advising on how to furnish a beach hut and it is all a long way from plastic washing up bowls, splinters on the floor and the smell of fish paste sandwiches. Craftsman James Wood has a business making new beach huts. Beech work tops and oiled floors are de rigueur.
Yet owning a beach hut as an investment isn’t a simple matter of handing over the keys and collecting the money. There may be a service charge or ground rent.
At Branscombe that amounts to £1,530 a year. Also, the huts need on-going maintenance. ‘The sea air and winter storms are a real problem,’ says Jodie. ‘The damp warps the doors. I need to paint them every year and fix all the bolts that rust so easily.’
Ultimately, owning a beach hut is as much a labour of love as an investment. ‘There’s something refreshing about spending a day in the beach hut looking out to sea,’ says Sade, a paediatric nurse. ‘You get this sense of space that is so calming.’
THE temptation to spend a small fortune on a new or renovated kitchen is hard to resist. But a configuration that works hard and looks good need not be out of reach. The key is to plan your layout, customising in places and saving in others. Opting for quality cabinet fronts can elevate an off-the-peg kitchen to something special, while highend handles and tapware can transform a space from average to appealing.
CUPBOARD LOVE
COMBINING standard kitchen carcasses and cabinets, such as Ikea’s Metod range, with custom-made fronts is an economical approach. HØLTE pairs crafted wood veneer or durable, coloured fronts with Ikea units (from £6,100, holte.studio).
‘Bespoke cabinets can bring so much individuality to a project, whether it’s a wine rack on the back of an island, or slimline wall cabinets with reeded glass sliding doors,’ says co-founder Fiona Ginnett.
‘A good kitchen needs to flow — work with what you have. We always start by zoning the space to establish areas for cleaning, cooking and prep. Make a list of the appliances you want to accommodate and find the ideal place for them to give a solid skeleton around which to build the cabinetry.’
Try its high Ford range, whose wood or matt coloured fronts offer warmth and a contemporary feel.
Custom Fronts (customfronts.co.uk) majors in streamlined, sustainable designs inspired by nature and created to work with Ikea cabinetry too, from £1,486.
‘Forget trends,’ says Custom Fronts founder rachel Carroll. ‘Think about how you live and what your needs are.
‘Consider colours in your local nature spots that make you feel good and incorporate those tones.’
CANNY UPDATES
WHATEVER the size of your space, storage planning is key to a good-looking kitchen. A balance that combines drawers, pullouts and traditional cabinets will make prepping and cooking effortless.
‘If your budget only stretches to an entry level design, opt for a neutral finish, add interest with eye-catching details, from stylish splashbacks through to paint finishes or display shelving,’ says Kitchen Makers’ Ben Burbidge (burbidgekitchen makers.co.uk).
‘With open storage, such as shelves and glass-fronted cabinets, display your favourite plates or glassware.’ Display glass jars filled with pasta, fruit and oats on open shelving to add a farmhouse feel to your kitchen. Ikea has Korken 1litre jars from £2 (ikea.com). Instead of ripping out an existing kitchen, try having cabinets resprayed and replacing taps and work surfaces.
‘Opt for tops that have both visual impact and resilience,’ says Graeme Smith at Life Kitchens ( lifekitchens.co.uk).
‘Look at materials like quartz for a more cost-effective solution to marble, for example.’
ALL CHANGE
REPLACING taps, handles and door knobs can all transform joinery.
Check out the range at Beardmore (beardmore.co.uk) or Superfront (superfront.com) for bespoke alternatives, and Swarf (swarfhardware.com) for a modern take.
Flooring-wise, vinyl is chic and affordable, as well as being hard-wearing.
Carpetright’s Mediterranean 575 Nuria, £19.99 per sqm, adds edge to white cabinetry (carpetright.co.uk), while Neisha Crosland’s Parquet in Charcoal, £55 per sqm, gives a graphic look (neishacrosland.com).